U N I T E D S TAT E S I N S T I T U T E O F P E A C E
PEACEBRIEF225
United States Institute of Peace • www.usip.org • Tel. 202.457.1700 •
LtCol Edward Powers, USMC
Email: epowers@usip.org
“ Civilian organizations
and the military must become
functional partners in this CVE
effort, leveraging each other’s
distinctive capabilities from
the start of the operational
design process and together
creating space for civilian
experts to do their work,
enabled by the military. ” which is a frustrating situation after sixteen years of persistent, well-funded CT operations.1 But, in
© USIP 2017 • All rights reserved.
@usip June 2017
The Military’s Role in Countering
Violent Extremism
Repurposing Stability Operations
Summary
• Despite persistent counterterrorism (CT) operations, globally the threat of violent extremism
(VE) is higher today than in August 2001.
• Though it has effective CT capability, the U.S. military lacks a comprehensive strategy for coun-
tering and eliminating the drivers of VE.
• Because unstable, fragile states provide gateways for violent extremist organizations to establish
a territorial base and recruit, the Department of Defense should adopt a comprehensive counter-
VE strategy that complements reactive CT operations with preventative, proactive stability
operations.
• Stability operations as part of CVE strategy should be grounded in an understanding of local
context that identifies and addresses the grievances that lead to VE. Such operations require
close partnering with civil society organizations.
A Gap in the U.S. Military Strategy
Another head of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan has been eliminated, and U.S.-
backed militias tighten their chokehold on Raqqa, while Iraqi forces supported by the United
States advance into the final bastion of IS territory in Mosul. Soon the IS will be homeless and
leaderless, but the fall of Mosul and Raqqa and even the elimination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi are
insufficient to stem the tide of violent extremism (VE). The U.S. military has an efficient counter-
terrorism (CT) capability, which effectively removes violent extremists from the battlefield and
dismantles violent extremist organizations. Nonetheless, the U.S. military’s lack of a comprehensive
strategy for countering violent extremism (CVE) that links reactive CT operations to preventative
efforts to eliminate the drivers of VE stands in the way of an enduring reduction of the VE threat.
CT efforts are necessary and vital to U.S. security, but without prevention, they are insufficient, and
some tactics, such as the use of drone strikes and night raids, may even amplify VE by contributing
to grievances. It is noteworthy that the threat of VE is higher today than it was in August 2001,
the absence of effective prevention, the drivers of VE will continue to stoke a perpetual cycle
of radicalization.
The Military’s Role in Countering Violent Extremism
Page 2 • PB 225 • June 2017

The Department of Defense (DOD) has an underutilized role to play through the stability
operations mission. Unstable, fragile states, especially those caught up in armed conflict,2 serve as
gateways for violent extremists to recruit followers and establish a base from which to carry out
terrorist activities.
As the preventative complement to the DOD’s CT efforts, stability operations can help close
these gateways, but the future of stability operations is the subject of debate. DOD leaders and
policymakers question the validity of stability operations because of the mission’s association with
fraught efforts in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan and because they see the mission as representing
the status quo and a way to avoid making necessary changes. This prevalent view, when coupled
with a lack of consensus understanding that stability operations can help reduce the VE threat,
has left stability operations underresourced. But the capacity for stability operations exists, and
simply repurposing this capacity as the preventative complement to CT operations can alleviate
these concerns. By adopting a more nuanced approach, the DOD could integrate its existing
capacities into a comprehensive CVE strategy and achieve an enduring reduction in VE. Under
such a scenario, the degradation of IS forces in Afghanistan and Iraq might not be followed by a
resurgence of VE.

Reorienting Stability Operations toward CVE

A broad review of policy, doctrine, and research in the areas of CVE, state fragility, capacity build-
ing, and stability operations reveals three critical principles that can help military leadership
reorient stability operations toward reducing VE. These principles serve to operationalize the
design and execution of CVE operations.

Principle 1: Understand the Local Context, Then Act

Because the grievances that drive VE are unique to the local context, understanding the context,
down to the community level, must be the first concern of stability operations planners and the
first step toward eventually developing national-level plans.
A rubric drawn from the principles of sustainable capacity building developed by the United
States Institute of Peace (USIP) serves to frame actions in a local context: 3
• Does the action promote local ownership of solutions?
• Does the action do no harm to local actors or their perception of the stability operations
effort?
• Does the action result in locally sustainable solutions?
This local focus does not require that local tradition or local norms be considered the correct
or most effective way of doing business, for the local way of doing business may be directly
contributing to the VE problem. Rather, the point is to understand the local context, from the local
viewpoint, so that solutions can be applied that are effective and sustainable within that context.

Principle 2: Address Grievances

When a population cannot address grievances nonviolently, it turns to violent means.4 VE-focused
stability operations build legitimate remedies to grievances that drive VE. Understanding the local
context exposes these grievances, presenting solutions that stability operations can facilitate.
Efforts to rectify the most VE-significant grievances then become priorities, focusing effort on
enabling capacity building that will most effectively reduce a population’s vulnerability to VE.

© USIP 2017 • All rights reserved.

The Military’s Role in Countering Violent Extremism
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Principle 3: Engage in Next-Level Partnering

Enabling civilian organizations is vital to the success of VE-focused stability operations because
these organizations possess essential CVE expertise and tools, including deep understanding of
the local context, mediation and negotiation expertise, and peacebuilding experience. Civilian
organizations and the military must become functional partners in this CVE effort, leveraging
each other’s distinctive capabilities from the start of the operational design process and together
creating space for civilian experts to do their work, enabled by the military. Both parties must work
to reduce or eliminate barriers to partnering because a strong civil society is an excellent defense
against VE.
This partnership is already under way: in 2005, InterAction, the DOD, and USIP codified military
and nongovernmental organization hostile environment deconfliction methods, which greatly im-
proved the ability of the military and humanitarian organizations to work in adjacent spaces.5 The
next step is to move beyond deconfliction and toward cooperative partnership, integrating efforts
where possible, because settling for deconfliction alone denies the possibility of synergy. Partners
must design and plan activities together from inception, eliminating informational and operational
barriers. Challenges with the military information classification system are one example of a barrier
that must be overcome; another is the reluctance of some civil society organizations to work with
any military group.
Next-level partnering, the tight integration and close cooperation between civilian and military
partners working toward the same objective, will look different depending on the local context.
Sometimes civilian organizations will fully integrate with military partners; at other times partners
will deliberately deconflict civilian activities from military efforts to prevent misperception of
intentions and ensure safe lanes of operation. The partnership itself is the key to maximum
effectiveness.

Redesigning Traditional Approaches to Stability Operations

Getting the shooting to stop does not eliminate the grievances that drive individuals to VE. Per-
haps most important from a military perspective, the way in which military forces achieve security
can also create grievances that fuel VE. An aggrieved population will remember and resent abusive
practices long after the violent conflict ends, but security forces can prevent a hardening of civilian
disposition by discovering, acknowledging, and punishing members of security forces for negative
practices such as torture, sexual violence, kidnapping, and executions. By redesigning traditional
approaches to stability operations along the following lines, guided by the three critical principles
discussed above, stability operations can effect change and realize a reduction in VE.
• All security sector reform should partner military trainers with interorganizational human
rights trainers because focusing simply on security tactics and techniques without hu-
man rights training results in units effective at stamping out violence but likely to incite
grievances arising from abusive behaviors. Security sector reform should result in skilled
security forces able to relate to the protected population, incentives for adhering to uni-
versal human rights, and legitimate punishment for abusive behavior by security forces.
• Security forces must secure vulnerable populations in such a manner that there is no
perception of special consideration or favoritism toward any group. Doing so requires
developing a deep understanding of the local population dynamics, something civilian
partners can assist with. Armed with contextual understanding, security forces can focus
on protecting the population impartially, while demonstrating they are advocates for
peace.

© USIP 2017 • All rights reserved.

The Military’s Role in Countering Violent Extremism
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• The separation of warring parties should involve security operations and locally led
mediation efforts conducted in parallel. Partnership between security forces and media-
tors can help mitigate and reduce revenge killings and prevent perpetuation of a cycle
of violence that fuels VE. Mediation efforts should begin before the first security forces
deploy, bringing factional leadership together and building relationships to begin laying
the foundation for a lasting peace after large-scale violence has ended.6
• Humane detention and incarceration practices prevent grievances that drive VE because
it is very difficult to recruit people into VE when conditions in prison are better than
those outside. Upon detention, experts should immediately triage detainees according
to potential threat, and then introduce them into appropriate adjudication channels.
High-threat individuals should, after conviction, be isolated to prevent collateral radi-
calization while they are incarcerated. Those posing a moderate or low threat should be
deradicalized, rehabilitated, and reintegrated into society, with support services to al-
leviate challenging circumstances. Nonjudicial adjudication may be offered. Prisons and
detention facilities are often fertile breeding grounds for VE, so a tempered and precise
approach to detention and incarceration is key to preventing its spread.7
• Mass reintegration of ex-combatants entails navigating a complex tangle of civilian
and military domains; demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration operations must
be integrated with other plans, such as detention, deradicalization, and reconciliation.
Many ex-combatants will have career skills that are beneficial to communities, such
as knowledge of electricity and engineering; however, they must cease to be a threat,
and communities have to accept them back. Also, reconciliation must not run counter
to legal barriers such as foreign terrorist organization designations. 8 A successful mass
reintegration in particular requires the strong partnership of civilian and security bodies.
• Access and nondiscrimination allow a population to voice grievances. The military must
create secure spaces where civilian organizations can build the local capacity to partici-
pate in governmental processes and fight discrimination.

Recommendations
CT operations without CVE efforts are an incomplete approach to the VE threat, but a comprehen-
sive CVE strategy is possible with the addition of repurposed stability operations, which requires
more integrated partnership with civilian organizations with CVE expertise. The following recom-
mendations maximize the military contribution to CVE and empower civilian partners through a
redesign of stability operations:
• Repurpose stability operations as the DOD’s role in CVE. Stability operations should
become the proactive, preventative CVE complement to the DOD’s reactive CT mission.
• Adopt the principles of VE-focused stability operations. These three critical principles
reorient stability operations on VE by providing a rubric for the design, planning, and
execution of such operations.
• Redesign the conduct and implementation of stability operations. The redesigned
applications of stability operations suggested here are examples of CVE reduction efforts
possible through next-level partnering.

© USIP 2017 • All rights reserved.

 The Military’s Role in Countering Violent Extremism
Page 5 • PB 225 • June 2017

About This Brief Notes

This Peace Brief, which draws on
the author’s experiences during a
yearlong fellowship at the United
States Institute of Peace (USIP),
addresses a gap in the U.S. military
strategy for countering violent
extremism and offers recommenda-
tions for a new approach.
Edward Powers is an active duty
lieutenant colonel in the U.S.
Marine Corps currently assigned
to USIP as a Commandant of
the Marine Corps Fellow. He has
deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan
in support of combat operations,
as well as to Okinawa, Japan. Most
recently he deployed to the Federal
Democratic Republic of Nepal in
support of Operation Sahayogi
Haat, which provided humanitarian
assistance and disaster relief fol-
lowing the devastating earthquake
there in 2015.
1. National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, Global Terrorism
Database, 2016, www.start.umd.edu/gtd/features/GTD-Data-Rivers.aspx.
2. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, “Eighty-eight percent of all terrorist at-
tacks in 2015 occurred in countries that were experiencing or involved in armed conflicts.”
“Global Terrorism Index 2015,” November 2015, http://economicsandpeace.org/wp-content/
uploads/2015/11/Global-Terrorism-Index-2015.pdf.
3. Nadia Gerspacher, Sustainable Capacity Building: Guidelines for Planning and Project Design Com-
munities (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, March 2017), 8.
4. “A U.S. Humanitarian, Development and Peacebuilding Statement on the U.S. Global Countering
Violent Extremism Agenda,” Action for Community Development and other signatories, July 20,
2015, www.mercycorps.org/sites/default/files/20July2015_Statement_U.S.GlobalCounteringViol
entExtremismAgenda.pdf.
5. USIP, Interaction, and DOD, Guidelines for Relations between U.S. Armed Forces and Non-Govern-
mental Humanitarian Organizations in Hostile or Potentially Hostile Environments (Washington, DC:
U.S Institute of Peace, 2005).
6. David R. Smock and Daniel Serwer, eds., Facilitating Dialogue: USIP’s Work in Conflict Zones (Wash-
ington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2012).
7. Peter R. Neumann, Prisons and Terrorism: Radicalisation and De-radicalisation in 15 Countries (Lon-
don: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence [ICSR], 2010), 1.
8. Georgia Holmer and Adrian Shtuni, “Returning Foreign Fighters and the Reintegration Impera-
tive,” Special Report no. 402 (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2017), 1.

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